Hunger drew back the stump of his arm and swatted the Mokaddian to the other side of the room. He looked down at his hand on the floor and then at his stump. The dirt in his forearm had already begun to shift and form itself into a new ragged thing that looked not so much like a hand as it did the wild growth from a coppiced tree.

These two knew how to resist him. This meant he was going to have to kill them before he unraveled them. That was trickier than just taking them live. Trickier, but he could do it.

The Koramite backed up by the burning pile of straw. He held his useless axe ready. The Mokaddian knelt at the far wall, looking as if he were trying to regain his senses.

Hunger would take the Koramite first.

Then he felt the Mother stirring and all his attention turned to the collar. He had to hide it, had to busy himself with some other task. Otherwise, she would know.

She would know, she would know. She would command him to bring these men to her, and he would have to obey. Eventually, he would have to obey. But if she didn’t know, she couldn’t command.

Hunger turned and rushed back to Purity. He threw her over his shoulder like a sack of grain, then ran for the exit. The Koramite tried to stop him, but Hunger flung the man aside. Then it was up the stairs and into the dark, back the way he’d come. He’d get out, then he’d remove the collar before the Mother fully wakened. He’d cover it and all thought of the men. And when she fell asleep again, he’d come back for them all.

Argoth saw Hogan bury the Hog deep in the creature’s leg, but it had no visible effect. The creature knocked Hogan aside as it had done to him, tossed him like he was so much straw. Then the creature rushed out of the cleansing room with Purity clutched to its chest and the Hog still buried in its leg.

Hogan struggled to his knees. He grimaced and held his arm close as if it were broken. He winced. “That just might have cracked my collarbone.”

“I’ve never-” said Argoth in amazement. The power of that creature. What was it?

“I felt someone there,” said Hogan. “Inside the beast.”

“Who?”

Hogan shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Men yelled above. There was a crash, something heavy tumbling down the upper stairway.

“They’re not going to be able stop it,” said Argoth.

Hogan’s face twisted in surprise. “Lumen,” he said.

“What?”

“Lumen’s soul.”

Lumen, the Divine who had overseen the Nine Clans. The Divine who had gone missing last year. Is this how he had disappeared, in some experiment gone awry? Or had the Bone Faces taken him and put him into this rough creature?

Another crash sounded from above.

Argoth raced out of the room to the stairs. He saw the Hog lying on the steps where it must have fallen from the creature’s leg and called back to Hogan to pick it up. Smoke from the straw fire below rolled up along the ceiling. It choked him, so he kept his head low and ran up into the darkness. He burst into the first cellar and heard the clamor of many men above.

On his way up the next flight of stairs he jumped over two guards. One was dead, splayed out in a horrible pose. The other lay on his back, moaning.

Argoth reached the main level and saw that the battle had moved outside. Men with torches and pikes stood outside the door and shouted. They surged to one side as if hit by a large wave.

He’d been able to hack off the thing’s hand. Of course, it had done as much good as chopping a worm in two. But he’d much rather face that thing in pieces. And if all they could do was dismember it, then that’s what they must do.

He charged outside. A number of the men shouted and pointed at something on the wall.

Argoth turned. The thing climbed the wall like a dark, three-legged spider, shielding Purity against its chest like a mother might her newborn babe.

Men threw spears. The half-moon made silhouettes of a number of guards on the wall who were in the process of stringing their bows or taking aim.

Those would do nothing to the creature, but they could kill Purity. And if this was her monster, that might dissolve its bindings.

“The ballista!” he shouted. “Turn the ballista!” At various points upon the wall stood seven ballistae. Argoth shouted up the orders a third time, and the guards manning the one closest to the creature began to turn it.

Hogan appeared at Argoth’s side. “How can this be?” The Hog was in his hands.

“I don’t know,” answered Argoth.

“It’s hers, isn’t it?”

“We’ll soon find out,” said Argoth.

The creature moved with such speed he knew the ballista men were only going to get one shot.

“Take it when it crests the top!” Argoth shouted.

More archers arrived and the thrumming of their bows made a chorus. He could hear the ballista men on the wall cranking their engine back. One five-foot, iron-headed dart from these machines could transfix several armored men. The only weapon more powerful would be one of the warwolves, casting a massive stone. But those would be ineffective against such a small, mobile target.

The creature neared the top.

“Lead it!” a man shouted.

The moon suddenly shone through a gap in the ragged clouds and lit up the wall. It was hideous how the thing moved, like an insect. Then it reached the top and raised itself up, its back bristling with arrows.

Now, they should fire now! Argoth heard the loud thwonk of the ballista. The creature took one massive step upon the wall, a dark, hulking figure, Purity’s naked form like a small, pale flower held at its chest, then, in the next moment, both were swept away.

“Lords,” said Hogan.

“Quickly,” Argoth shouted, “to the bailey!”

By now most of the fortress guard had awakened and had come to the call to arms. Torches were lit. A quarter of a cohort, almost a hundred and fifty men, rushed to the gate of the inner wall, Argoth and Hogan following behind. When they reached the bailey between the two fortress walls, they rushed to the spot where the creature should have fallen.

Argoth expected at any moment to hear the men in front call out that they’d found the creature. But no such shout arose. Then one soldier lifted the massive ballista dart into the air.

“Scan the walls!” someone shouted. Men stood back to examine the moonlit walls. A group of soldiers charged forward, beyond the location where the ballista dart was found.

Argoth grabbed a torch from a soldier and stepped up to examine the tip of the dart. It was clean. Not a drop of blood. Not a speck of dirt.

He looked at the ground where the dart had fallen. Nothing heavy had landed here. He looked up at the wall. He knew the soldiers searching the rest of the bailey would not find the creature. It was gone, vanished into the night just as it had come.

“Purity,” he said. “What have you wrought?”